Just when you thought the prolific Cohn Restaurant Group might be ready to take a breather following its breakneck pace of restaurant openings, the San Diego enterprise is preparing to open its second Ocean Beach eatery and 20th dining venue in San Diego County.

It’s not the only serial restaurateur itching to expand in a region that leads the nation in growth among independent operators.

The creator of Slater’s 50/50 burger, an amalgam of ground bacon and beef, is capitalizing on Americans’ love affair with bacon with a new concept that will revolve around the porcine product, plus delve into the world of exotic game meats. And the owner of two popular coastal, tavern-style restaurants is moving into the Gaslamp Quarter just in time for baseball season.

Here’s an inside look at the latest high-profile projects taking shape in San Diego.

OB Warehouse World Kitchen

It’s not like David and Lesley Cohn are newbies to Ocean Beach, given their first successful foray with Bo-beau Kitchen + Bar. But once they decided to invest last year in some restaurant real estate on busy Newport Avenue, they made sure to listen carefully to what their future patrons wanted. Please, not another bar, passers-by implored.

Teaming with designer Philippe Beltran, who’s collaborated with the Cohn Group on eight restaurants in the last three years, David Cohn acknowledged that the initial concept has undergone some tinkering over time, moving from casual street food to a more elevated global cuisine. Chef Amiko Gubbins, who formerly owned the restaurant, Parallel 33, is crafting the menu, which takes inspiration from Asian, Moroccan, Middle Eastern and Indian cuisine.

Beltran, who forages around the world and the web for unique, recycled finds, is dressing up the second-story space with a combination of metals, woods and accent pieces to imbue it with a “warehouse chic” ambience. Corrugated metal from the roof of a metal shop was used for the facade, while an Airstream trailer Beltran purchased from a Texan is a dramatic centerpiece for viewing the open kitchen in the back of the 140-seat restaurant. The women’s room is embellished with 59 antique hand mirrors while the men’s restroom showcases vintage oil tins behind glass.

Charmed by Ocean Beach’s eclectic vibe, the Cohn Restaurant Group has gone all in on its newest location, buying the former Portugalia restaurant building rather than lease the space.

“One of the things about California real estate is prices are always going up and most restaurateurs sign leases where every year or two your lease goes up and up and sales don’t always go up and up and up,” Cohn said of his purchase. “Our Bo-beau GM lives in Ocean Beach and when this restaurant space came up, she said you have to do another restaurant here.

“We didn’t have to spend this kind of money in Ocean Beach but we wanted to make this special.”

Swine Bar

San Diegan Scott Slater has been rapidly cloning his burger-bacon concept restaurants since opening his first Slater’s 50/50 in Anaheim five years ago. He just opened his seventh location, the latest in San Marcos, but his own love affair with bacon persuaded him to launch a new concept that would allow him to stretch creatively.

Slater, a San Diego State graduate who got his start bringing hot dog concession stands to Home Depots, said a centerpiece of his new fast casual restaurant will be 15 or more varieties of house-made bacon, from Cajun, hickory and mesquite to lavendar-infused slabs.

He’s even thinking of caffeinating bacon and encasing it in chocolate.

The focus on pork may be a smart business move given its growing proliferation on fast casual menus, according to the market research firm Technomic.

“I have that serial entrepreneurial bug,” Slater said. “50/50 is doing great. I just want to create something new, and I think we have this really good idea with making our bacon. We’ll also do a lot of sausages, and game meats like rabbit, venison, veal, python, reindeer, rattlesnake.”

The split-level, 3,300-square-foot venue, which Slater hopes will have an experimental vibe (think “a butcher shop with spray paint”) will feature communal tables, outdoor patio space, a changing menu on digital screens and a retail market and deli counter.

For the first time, he’s bringing in investors to finance his restaurant development and if Swine Bar proves successful, he’d consider replicating it elsewhere. Meanwhile, Slater says he’s still planning on developing more 50/50 restaurants in California.

Location: University Heights; 4130 Park Blvd., San Diego

Opening date: Late summer/early fall; will be open daily for breakfast, lunch and dinner

The vacant downtown space formerly occupied by Donovan’s Prime Seafood is empty no more, with the opening this week of Gaslamp Union Kitchen & Tap, sister restaurant to the now three-year-old Encinitas location. Owner Eric Leitstein, whose OMG Restaurant Group also operates the PB Ale House in Pacific Beach, said he had been exploring opportunities in downtown San Diego for the last year and seized on the Donovan’s space when the fine-dining restaurant closed after just two years in business.

Designed as a much more casual, warehouse-style space, using reclaimed wood, metal and brick, Union Kitchen will have three bars, including one specializing in whiskey and another located in a still unfinished private dining room in the back of the 7,500-square-foot restaurant.

“The location is awesome, just a stone’s throw from the ballpark and convention center,” said Leitstein, who plans on featuring DJ’s on weekends and live entertainment possibly a couple nights during the week. “A lot of brokers had been calling me about doing another restaurant but I wanted to make sure that when I did another project, the foundation of the company was strong and I had the right people on board.”